The English name for shrimp dumpling and bbq pork is har gow and char siu. As far as I know, these two items are of Cantonese origin.
Growing up speaking some limited Cantonese and Toishanese, we would pronounce with a hard “A”.
Ha gow and cha siu. That is the way my ear hears it pronounced in SF Chinatown and Hong Kong.
Adding an “r” to either sounds Beijingnese to me. Am I totally off base, or just plain wrong about the phonetic spelling and English pronunciation of these items ?
Mmm… I don’t think there’s an official romanization on Cantonese so that’s probably the reason why you tend to see variations on it. I just tend to copy whatever was on the dim sum menu last I checked haha. But when I pronounce them, there really isn’t an r there… hm…
The r is not pronounced in Cantonese , no idea why it is romanized that way. In mandarin, the word for shrimp (xia) doesn’t have an ‘r’ ending either nor does the word for fork (cha)
The difference between Cantonese and Taiwanese dim sum is probably bigger than NY thin slice vs Chicago deep dish pizza. The products are totally different and how you judge them are different. As others have noted too, XLB at DTF is actually a Taiwanese interpretation of a Shanghainese product.
Well there’s a Dumpling resvolution going on! Must read this…but what these guys don’t know is labor will kill them as they’re not machines that can do XLB and SJB (my coining of the Pan-fried Steamed dumplings made famous by China Live)!
That’s Robert Lauriston’s board. He bailed out of Chowhound at about same time as Sampson did, and started a board using the same software as this one.
Actually K K actually has a few posts here on HO though I think he gravitates towards FTC more, but I apologize for using the abbreviation.
A little off topic, but I tend to gravitate towards HO more for SF/Asia info. Chowhound I still read Melanie’s posts and find Charles great for Toronto information, and FTC for LA discussions.
Just spent a long weekend down in LA with the extended family and after eating at some of the top dim sum places in the SGV, I really appreciate Dragon Beaux and Koi Palace even more. Everything down there was competent but I can’t say it was any better than my family’s every day dim sum place (常來 where Mayflower used to be on Geary). I’ve yet to have better than DB in the US, and it would do well even in Vancouver. I wish I knew Toronto better.
Just wanted to throw a heads up that the next iteration of dim sum from the KP/DB team has started. Curious if anyone has tried.
I’m just sometimes a little leery with this comment though:
“We want to break that stereotype that Chinese food is supposed to be cheap, and use cheap ingredients,” says Leung. “Why cant Chinese food be an upscale cuisine? For people to stop that perception we have to do that ourselves.”
Lobster ha gow , rice crepes with wagyu and black truffle, and fried soft shell “typhoon crab” are all updated dishes, whose plating has been carefully tweaked by chef Stephen Nguyen.
I believe many people on HO has alluded to the addition of these ingredients don’t seem to make the individual item shine.
